Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Afriend killed herself Monday night. We had just seen her overthe weekend at a convention. There were no warning signs.She was always a positive person. She had starred in a bunch oflocal films. She had a great job that she loved working as astudio director and DJ at a local radio station (she loved music).Life seemed to be going well for her. She bought stuff at thecon, got a pic with a celeb, was making plans for later in the week.Had messaged a couple other people to get together. None ofthese are the usual activities of someone in a suicidal state.

Shewent hiking with her besties Monday morning. Then Monday nightthere was a post on Facebook that simply said, "I am done"and she killed herself.

Ididn't know her well enough to know if there were hidden demons.I've had family members with bi-polar disorder, and from the outsideit looks an awful lot like that, because that tends to be a genetic,biological illness, a literal chemical imbalance. You can havethe greatest life, friends, family, job you love, no stress, no moneyworries, and still suffer from manic depression.

Itseems like she was on a great streak, but when the illness struck onMonday night it hit her hard, too hard for her to fight back, anddropped her into that dark pit of despair and hopelessness.

Ifyou suffer from bouts of depression, especially sharp declines andones that include suicidal thoughts, I urge you to seek help. Evenjust talking about it, how you feel, what you fear, can go greatlengths to easing your mind.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

You knew it was coming. In an age of mashups, if you hadn't seen them already, it was only a matter of time before the two cosmic horrors of Disney and Cthulhu collided. Ursula from The Little Mermaid and Davy Jones from The Pirates of the Caribbean are two very obvious, already existing nods to H. P. Lovecraft and his most famous, tentacled creation. But those are easy ones. Even my young daughter noticed, saying, "Ursula is Cthulhu's sister." But have you seen the others?

This is Duckthulu from the official Disney comic of Darkwing Duck.

Not sure what exactly is going on here, but it can't be good.

Then come the mashups.

Ursula meets Cthulhu by charneco

by Keith "Streetsweeper" Portzen

The Little Cthulhu by Captain Ribman

by Alex "Shin" Trombetta

Mickthulu Mouse by Beastpop (Popmonkey)

Silly Nameless Terror from the Goon Comic by Eric Powell

Cthulahula by ZombieMedia

this is a parody of vintage Hula Minnie Mouse

by Pahko Moreno

Call of Kerthulhu by Winter Artwork

(The Muppets are now owned by Disney)

My Neighbor Cthulhu by Murrills81

The classic anime style was inspired by Walt Disney's work

and Disney did redub and redistribute My Neighbor Totoro

Totoro Cthulhu by Crabro

Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2

based on the Marvel comics title of the same name

Marvel is now owned by Disney

Eldritch! is a digital comic definitely worth a mention!

Though this comic is not directly Disney related, it's creator Drew Rausch has quite the Cthulhu and Disney resume': Drew Rausch (Cthulhu Tales, Disney's Haunted Mansion) and Aaron Alexovich (Fables, Confessions of a Blabbermouth, Avatar: The Last Airbender).

I figured I'd throw in a couple of my own.

I can't believe no one ever thought to replace Mickey Mouse with Brown Jenkin before!

Dangerous
Worlds – the steampunk band that never was from a past that never
was. Sometimes things just don't work out. Steampunk music. It
seemed like a nice change of pace from the intense days of my earlier
industrial punk band Crowd Violence (ataricore noiserock is go!) A
simple three piece of strings-drums-vox. I even had a Tesla coil so I
could play some electrifying surf rock for a finale. Turns out the
coil builder was a good fabricator but not a good engineer. Thing
never worked properly beyond playing happy birthday and a few other
tunes via midi, and even half of those were messed up because of bad
channel interface. And none of my local mad scientists had the
know-how to bring it back to life. Sad, sad.

After
hitting up all the classical (violin, cello) strings players I could
find, some 40+, and being unfruitful in my pursuit, I turned to my
other passions, such as writing steampunk horror novels like Chainsaw
Alice in Wonderland or starting an officially recognized religion
to the dark gods via the First United Church of Cthulhu. But I will
always be a musician. At my root, that is who I am. I listen, play
or sing every single day and will until I die. You can't stop rock
and roll.

And
hey! I've heard a lot worse at some of the steampunk conventions.
And they were getting paid! So if you'd like to pay me to never sing
again, feel free to donate generously via Paypal. And let's face it,
steampunk needs a little more punk and a little less robots playing
PBS kids show tunes or pompous assholes who think they invented the
subsubgenre. You are not a rockstar! You're playing in the Montana
Room at the Holiday Inn at an old-timey sci-fi convention. Get over
yourself. Fuckin' amateurs.

Was
feeling a bit nostalgic for the good old days of performing and
hitting the local music scene five nights a week, so after a show and
still inebriated I recorded some lyrics. This was the only one that
made it through without slurring, laughing, or forgetting some of the
words. Bathroom acoustics are not everything they're cracked up to
be.

And
trug is an obsolete obscenity. Maybe I'll see you down at the
trugging house.

GRAND
THEFT AIRSHIP (a capella)

In
an armored zeppelin, baby, don’t you know that I’ll always love
you

In
an armored zeppelin, baby, don’t you know that I’ll always be
trueIn
an armored zeppelin, baby, come and take a rideIn
an armored zeppelin, baby, it’ll all be alright

Been
a long time since I flew in the moonlightBeen
a long time since my airship took flightBeen
a long time, been a long time,

Been
a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time, yes it has

I
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsI
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsI
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsDon’t
you understand?

I
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsI
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsI
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsDon’t
you understand?

I
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsI
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsI
got my head in the clouds and my heart in your handsDon’t
you understand?

Sometimes
I can't sleep. . .so I sing! Or perform an entire concert, in my
bedroom. This time I actually recorded it. And not drunk this time,
just suffering from terrible insomnia. The song is based on true
stories. This is actual advice I received from my young daughter,
and YES! I still do stupid things for pretty girls.

My
neighbors are all good people so I decided it best not use the actual
drum kit for this one. Bedroll drumroll. And check out that rock
face! Jack Black would be proud. Can you find the pictures of the
dead Victorian family members and the idol of Cthulhu in the
background? And the Tesla shirt, naturally.

YOU'RE
NO PRINCESS

My
daughter said Daddy, “No more bad girls, you can only kiss a
princess.”But I need some help to save me from myself

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Free Comic Book Day is the 1st Saturday in May. That can be bad news here in Phoenix, Arizona because the weather starts hitting 100 degrees by then, which it did this year, or at least the 90s. So here's a rundown of the westside of the Valley of the Sun. I didn't have my kids this weekend, and their mom never takes them, so my daughter gave me a mission to bring back any and all Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn free comics. I would succeed! Sadly though, no Harley in any of the books this year.

DRAWN TO COMICS
Love the store. Great people. They have more of a little festival with fun activities for the kids and boasts over 40 tables of artists, crafts and community clubs which is inside the American Legion Hall. It is very organized, they even had laminated print outs with pictures of the covers of all the free comics that they had so people could think about which ones they wanted beforehand. Very thoughtful and efficient.

The main problem is that the line to get inside the Legion hall backs up real quick. I arrived at the 9am opening and there was already a line which took about 20 minutes of waiting to get inside. They have some shade canopies set up. But there is a big dead spot of standing in the direct sun between the canopies and the front of the building where the line extends to back into the morning shade (even less shade once noontime rolls around).

As you enter the first room in the hall you get to pick out your 3 free comics, plus they had some buttons and other different extras you could choose from. They had a good stock of the free comics but were already out of a few of the more popular titles like Rick & Morty. But the problem is that everything backs up in the next, bigger Legion hall room where all the vendors are located. We're only 20 minutes into the day and the room is already packed. I got my comics and got out because it was already difficult to move down the rows.

It was the same way last year and I ended up not going in then because just the line waiting to go inside was wrapped around the corner and down the street. I wasn't going to wait 1-2 hours to get a few free comics.

So I probably won't bother to check them out on Free Comic Book Day anymore.

JESSES JAMES COMICS & COLLECTIBLES
They moved to a much bigger store a year or two ago, and it was a wise decision. The free comics were in an open area at the back of the store so there was a lot of good flow as everyone moved around the tables to pick out their comics. And an extremely wise business move - they offered 10 free comics. In addition to the full stock of the standard Free Comic Book Day titles they included a wide host of other comics for free. Some were back issues that were never going to sell, obscure titles from smaller or independent publishers. Some were back issues from series that failed. Had a bunch of Marvel's Civil War II titles; I browsed through some of the comic books and realized why they hadn't sold - what a boring series! Some great covers but the inside was full of civil but hardly any war. Lots and lots of nothing going on. But they also had some more current back issues available for free. Wisely, there was a fair amount of Rocket Raccoon/Guardians of the Galaxy issues scattered around the tables. And all those back issues that no one would buy can be written of as a loss or as a promotional expense for tax purposes. Good planning.

ALL ABOUT BOOKS & COMICSOnce again, love the store, great people. But they had a 1 free comic limit. Unless you bought $5 or more of their regular stock, or made a $5 donation to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, then you could pick out another 5 of the free comics. Or if you bought $25 worth of the specially priced $0.99 titles then you could pick out 25 of the free comics also.

Too much of a hassle, and kind of a hustle, so I didn't even bother to stop in.

SAMURAI COMICS - Phoenix location
Place was packed! They had the free comic books set up at tables toward the middle of the store, there was a good traffic flow despite the crowd. They allowed 3 free comics and they had the full selection of Free Comic Book Day titles. I even picked up the free one for The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess which was already out or not at the other two stores. Which was lucky for me because my son loves Link. I was happy to see that there was a massive increase in the number of comics that would appeal to little girls my daughter's age (Monster High, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wonder Woman, DC Superhero Girls) but not that many that he would have picked out. He would have said "meh" to a majority of the free titles this year.

And Samurai Comics was great proof that you don't need any extra gimmicks. Yes, people were in picking up only free comics, but a majority of the crowd was in one of several lines to buy other comics or geeky items they had discovered. So Free Comic Book Day was a success in exposing people to the wider world of comic geekdom.

I myself only got the free titles on this specific adventure because I already picked up the new Scooby Apocalypse issue last week and none of the stores had the Disney Haunted Mansion graphic novels that I've been looking to pick up. I always try to support local before turning online.

I would declare Jesse James the best of the westside for Free Comic Book Day in Phoenix.But we're all winners - because we got free comics! Hurray!